Glowing
by spacefemme
Summary: Oneshot about Mabel dealing with some run-of-the-mill post-apocalypse remorse. Content warning for anxiety and trauma.


_"Just a little more summer."_

She'd all but forgotten about it until maybe a week ago. Not the catastrophe itself - Stan was the only one with the luxury of having forgotten that, if only temporarily - but the moment before it had begun. The moment before she'd cut the celestial ribbon at the start of a week-long festival of torture.

 _"Just a little more summer."_

 _It wasn't your fault. You didn't know. He'd understand if you told him. You didn't know. He knows you didn't know._

The glowing blob peppered with tiny stars swirled around in her mind almost constantly now. Most nights, she could sleep just fine. She didn't get nightmares as often as Dipper did. If the booming, drawn-out, "Eenie, meenie, miney, you -" played back in her head again, she probably wasn't sleeping. In all likelihood, she was over the toilet again. Nights like that came once every couple of months, but other than that she slept through the night. The problems came while she was awake. In the morning, she'd go a few minutes at most without remembering it again, and the rest of the day was spent on her normal routine, only with her having to reassure herself every minute or so that _everything's okay now you're safe everyone's safe it wasn't your fault it wasn't your fault you didn't know you didn't know you didn't know_. On nights when it wasn't so bad for her, she'd check in on her brother. If he was having one of his bad nights, she'd wake him up and they'd make it a sleepover. Mabel would curl up in her bright pink sleeping bag and, once Dipper had fallen back asleep, put Waddles at the foot of his bed for added security.

 _It's not just that. A bunch of scary junk happened to him before that. You didn't make him like this it's not your fault it's okay you didn't know…_

* * *

The scent of whatever was for dinner downstairs was making her nausea so much worse. But then, it could've been hunger. She hadn't been able to muster the energy to eat full meals for the past couple of days. It had started because she'd had one of her bad nights, and her parents had let her stay in bed for most of the next day to rest. Only then she didn't eat a lot the whole day and then she started feeling really sick and ate even less and got lightheaded whenever she tried to get up. And that was what had prompted Dipper to ask what exactly was wrong now. He knew what it probably was. He was still reeling from it, too. The big thing right now was how panicky Mabel became when asked to talk about it. Something else was up, something that seemed to scare her even more.

"Come on, you can tell me."

"Nuh-uh."

Their parents had already tried getting it out of her, and, upon realizing that both their children had started going through this once they'd returned home from Oregon, even resorted to asking if Stan had had something to do with it. The utterly appalled reaction from their son and daughter at the suggestion signaled Mr. and Mrs. Pines' officially having run out of ideas as to what the source of it could be, and that was when Dipper had stepped in.

"Mabel, whatever it is, I'll understand. Promise." He offered her a reassuring smile, but that might've actually made it worse.

 _Don't you think I know that?_ she wanted to scream at him. Instead, she just flipped her pillow over and buried the side of her face in it, wiping her other eye with her pajama shirt sleeve.

"Okay, if you don't wanna talk about it, I won't make you," Dipper shrugged, his gaze bouncing from wall to wall in the hopes that something in Mabel's room would offer a solution. "Maybe we should just try to get your mind off it. Um… Here!" He pulled a DVD case from her shelf and presented her with the familiar image of three cutesy-looking horses jumping away from an explosion. "You love this movie! Remember when Grunkle Stan took us to see it and -"

"And we snuck into the projection room and we saw Thompson dumping that bucket of melted butter into his mouth!" Her voice was weak and shaky and not nearly as loud as normal, but still exuberant, despite everything. Still Mabel's.

He chortled and scrunched up his face, "Ew, gross, don't remind me!" Mabel propped herself up on her arm and stared at the floor, tears still in her eyes and an acquiescing smile growing on her face.

"You brought it up, genius."

Grinning victoriously, Dipper started up the blocky old combination TV/VCR/DVD player that his sister had claimed for herself once it had become obsolete and been replaced with a flat screen mounted on the living room wall. The two plopped some pillows down at the end of the bed facing the screen and turned off the light.

By the time their parents came up to tell them to get to sleep, that job had already been taken care of. Upon entering their daughter's room, they were met with a bright blue light shining on their son asleep, a fat pink lump curled up between him and a pile of bunched up blankets that enveloped a rosy-cheeked, contented face.


End file.
